Since going to college as well as spending the past two summers living in Seattle and then New York, my horizons have expanded considerably. But while these new experiences have produced their fair share of inspiration, recently I have been thinking about how this increased knowledge of “what is out there” has made it difficult to be fully satisfied wherever I am.

I’ve always believed that I’m someone who doesn’t need much to be content. And in high school, when all I knew was my hometown, it was very easy to be satisfied. Since I had never experienced better, I had no reason to yearn for more.

So I lived my high school years, and I was content. I went to school, I saw my friends on the weekends, I did extracurriculars. I went to my local YMCA gym, I ate home-cooked meals, and the extent of “eating out” was getting fast food with friends. I slept well and found joy in my own hobbies.

But now that I know more – now that I know what’s out there – I have noticed a new pattern of thought that first appeared in earnest earlier this year.

It was spring semester. I was taking the culminating core class for my Computer Science major, and it was difficult. As I strained myself for hours into the night over problem sets and dedicated whole weekends to reviewing content before midterms, I found myself wishing it were summer already. Summer meant heading to New York City for my internship, and I could not have been more excited.

In New York, I told myself, I would be in the real world. No more studying on the weekends – and not only that, no work at all after the work day ends at 5 pm! And there would be so much to explore: new food, new activities, new people. How exciting compared to the dull obligations of my college classwork at the time.

So there I was in the spring, present at university physically but with my mind already wandering, looking forward to the summer. There I was, falling prey to the very danger I tried to avoid in high school: the trap of “When will it be lunch?” and then “When will it be 3 pm?” and then “When will it be Friday?” and then “When will it be break?” and then “When will it be summer?” and suddenly, before I know it, the years have passed me by.

And spring did pass me by. I wasn’t content, so how could I not let myself get carried away with making New York out to be some magical experience? Instead of digging deep to try and find aspects that I did enjoy or focusing on what I was grateful for, I placed my hopes on the future. New York will be better, I said to myself. Summer can’t come quickly enough.

And then it was time! I spent a week at home after the end of the semester before flying out to the Big Apple. Before I knew it, I was whisked into a whole new world – not in the wide-eyed, “country boy in a big city” sense, but in a purely practical sense of all the unfamiliar environments that I needed to acclimate to. My apartment for the summer, too expensive yet still too small, that I shared with two university friends. My office building, right off of Times Square. My gym for the summer, a YMCA branch on the opposite side of the city. The interns from all over the country who I saw at the office.

But as exhilarating as those first two months were, before long, I found myself in a very familiar situation. I wasn’t content, and I was growing a bit tired of the city.

Don’t get me wrong – there were so many things that I did enjoy. But I found myself missing having a bedroom with a window, sleeping in my own bed, and seeing my hometown friends. And it didn’t help that I had been running into multiple challenging roadblocks at work.

So that insidious perspective returned, and I spent my last five weeks in New York there but not there yet again. The good parts of New York were no longer as exciting, and I couldn’t help but notice what my life in New York lacked: the ability to see an unbroken expanse of sky, the feeling of driving down an open road while belting my favorite songs, or (as silly as it sounds) being able to walk into a department store and use the bathroom if I needed to. When things were tough – when work was particularly bad, or when I didn’t get much sleep from staying out too late, or on days when I simply felt claustrophobic and irked by the city – I counted down the days until I could go home. Nashville will be better, I told myself.

And somehow, suddenly I had made it through my internship, completed my project, and it was my last day in the city. I had said goodbye to my friends, done a last tour of my favorite restaurants, and packed up my things. And after a slight flight delay from inclement weather, I touched down back home.

Finally, I thought to myself. This is what I’ve been waiting for. Here we go.

But these patterns of thought aren’t so easy to escape. I loved being at home. But I couldn’t help but find myself, once again, paying particular attention to what was lacking! 

For instance, the gym experience at home was a huge downgrade from my college gym – it closed much earlier and, among other things, had really cold and bright fluorescent lights that made me feel like I was in a laboratory. I had never had a problem with it in high school, but being back there for the first time since I had left for college three years ago, I was suddenly aware of its deficiencies.

Similarly, it was great to see my hometown friends, but I found myself irritated by the lack of diverse and tasty food options that I could take them to when compared to the options in New York. And, most inexplicably of all, I found myself missing my routines at university – like the Mexican bowl I would always get after an intense workout.

So those three short weeks at home were made even shorter by this pattern of thought that I slipped into for a third time.

And now here I am, at university, midway through the first semester of my last year of college. This is what I was so excited for when I was at home! But surprise surprise, despite the new environment checking off the boxes of what I found wanting in Nashville, it has still brought its own share of new challenges.

So having lived and experienced all of these new places these past few years – after having only lived in one place for the first eighteen years of my life – somehow I am left with this thought: the best place to live is where I am now.

That is, wherever I am at any moment must be the best life to live. I cannot continue to live in the future, delaying my contentedness to some imagined and perfect scenario down the road. 

At this point, I have experienced too many highs for any singular place to fully satisfy every single aspect of living. Nashville will never have as many exciting food options as New York. New York will never be as quiet and peaceful as Seattle. Seattle will never have the sheer amount of familiar faces as Durham. And Durham will never provide the comfort of home that I have in Nashville. There will never be a perfect place that checks off all the boxes.

So instead of being caught up on what better aspects are out there, this semester I am focusing on being satisfied with where I am. Instead of focusing on what is lacking where I’m at – putting it in comparison with every other place I have been – I am spotlighting what things are “right.” 

Instead of lamenting the challenges I am facing in whichever season of life I’m in, I am living with the understanding that future times will inevitably bring their own obstacles – so I might as well try and find satisfaction in the now, even with the challenges. And instead of settling on the future as a panacea, I am doing what I can do make the present as fulfilling and content as possible.

It is very easy to be a passenger in life, resigning myself to each situation I find myself in and hoping that time alone can deliver me to a better place – metaphorically and literally. But after making that same mistake over and over again, and after discovering each time that what I was waiting for didn’t turn out to be the perfect environment I had envisioned, this past year has been a reminder that the grass really isn’t greener on the other side.

So with this age-old lesson freshly learned the hard way, I’m metaphorically standing here with a bucket, and I’m ready to get to irrigating.